


Leave a Message at the Tone

by Writersblockisme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Missing Cas, Pining Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 05:18:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6691216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writersblockisme/pseuds/Writersblockisme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is working hard to find Cas.</p><p>11.19 coda</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave a Message at the Tone

Cas had been gone for weeks; Amara had just whisked him off like it was nothing, like he was nothing. Like he wasn’t one half of Dean’s world, buried under a trench coat and an archangel. Dean had barely slept, barely eaten. Hell, Dean had barely moved from his chair at the table, which was hardly distinguishable under the dozens of tomes that covered it, tomes he had paged through searching for answers, for anything that would tell him how he could get Cas back.

Sam helped when he could, but he didn’t have nearly the same sense of desperation that fueled Dean. He was missing his friend, but Cas wasn’t a fundamental building block in Sam’s universe the way that he was in Dean’s. Sam relied on caffeine, glucose, and sleep to fuel him. Dean had emptiness.

And when that emptiness became overwhelming, when the rasp of paper on paper, of graphite on legal pad, of key tapping one more search into Google was no longer enough to keep it at bay, Dean would dial Cas’s voicemail, just to hear the gravel tones tell him to leave a message. Dean never would.

He could feel the words bubbling up his windpipe, wanting to burst out, to tell someone, anyone, even if it is just the voicemail on Cas’s cheap cellphone. _I need you here, Cas. I want you here, Cas. I love you._ He could hear himself saying the words in a way that he had never been able to do before. Hear them crossing the room. He could imagine Cas hearing them, looking surprised, but happy in a way that Cas was rarely truly happy. Stoned, yes, loopy, yes, but not happy.

He slammed another book shut. Nothing. He dropped it on the ‘nothing’ pile. At this rate, he was going to become the foremost expert on everything but how to rescue an angel possessed by an archangel from the sister of the Christian God. In other words, everything but what he wants. And isn’t that usually how the universe works? Everything but what Dean Winchester wants.

He opened the next one and began. This is how he spent his days now. He ate when Sam brought him food, only left the table to fill his coffee mug and visit the bathroom. He slept in the seat, slumped over the latest manuscript for short periods of time. He hadn’t felt his ass in more than a week, long since numbed by the chair.

He would call Cas from the chair, too.

But it didn’t matter. He would regain the feeling in his rear when he got Cas back. When he was safe from that Amara bitch. If she still thought that he couldn’t hurt her after she took Cas from him, she had another thing coming. He was going to cram her back into the nasty little hole she came from so hard, she would never again come out, just watch.

Every day that he didn’t find a way to do that made the emptiness stretch out just a little further. Every day, he got a little bit closer to choking those words out into the voicemail. Every day, he reminded himself that it was something he wanted to tell Cas in person, looking into his intense blue eyes. He wanted to wrap his arms around him, press their foreheads together, and whisper the words across his lips.

He wanted to press the lengths of their bodies together in a way that meant that Cas was safe and whole, wrap his hands in that trench coat that was just so _Cas._ He wanted to smell the ozone and petrichor that was Cas the seraph and that old book smell that was just Cas.

Days passed, marked by the half-eaten sandwiches that grew stale on the table to be taken away by Sam and replaced shortly thereafter. The emptiness grew in Dean until he felt nothing else, was nothing else. He know he could not hold himself together, that the words were spilling out of the cracks forming. They were written in his eyes, folded into the wrinkles of his t-shirt. They hissed out with every sigh and weighed on his slumped shoulders. Sam had seen them long ago.

There was nothing for it. The words were echoing in the void within him, bouncing off the edges of the space Cas used to occupy. He needed to let them out.

He hit redial. It was the only number he had used in the last few weeks. The now familiar ten toned sequence issued from the speaker and Dean listened to the ringing.

 _The number you have dialed cannot be reached at this time. Please leave a message for, “_ **Castiel** _.” BEEP._

“Cas, man. I know you’re not going to listen to this, not for a while at least. But… but I need you to know, I’m looking for you. I’m going to get you back. And this time, things are going to be different. I’m going to be different.

“I can’t… I can’t ever let you do this sacrificial lamb thing again. Because, Cas, man, this… this is ripping me apart. I… I miss you. I miss you every. Single. Day. And it’s all I can do to keep going. I don’t know how long I can keep doing this without you before I just hit the road and search every damn city by hand.

“Because Cas, the truth is, I need you. I need you to keep me sane. I need you to keep me going in the hard times, and I need you to celebrate the wins with me.

“Because I love you Cas.”

_If you are satisfied with your message, hit 1 or hang up. If you would like to erase and re-record, hit 2. If you would like to erase your message hit 4._

Dean’s finger lingered over the “End” button. It wavered there for a moment. Then it travelled down and left.

**4.**

_Good bye._


End file.
